Monday, February 22, 2010

Notice, with their machinery and factory setup, they have been able to cut down the testing cycle to 4 minutes... Sounds unbelievable .. I think it is ..

Google produces Innovation machines and IT vendors set up factories… So back to Factories and start oiling machines. Probably we should change IT designations to map roles on assembly line shop floor … - foreman, supervisor (this is there already in some sense), operator, inventory manager, assembler…. As few expect, IT work will eventually be a factory job. For one, my wife and kids would be happy. I can then work in shifts and come back home at sharp, say 5:30.

It is interesting to watch what Google is doing ….though their innovation factory recently had an outage…. With “Buzz” having “bugs” related to privacy...

You know what … as a tester, bugs make me happy… that is an eccentric , one sided view …especially with those who boast “machines and factories” of software. After all we are very far from the day when truly software will be produced in machines, requirements will be read from humans through bar-code type readers, we would be able recall software as cars (instead of sending a patch) and there would software garages.

Monday, February 15, 2010

"There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough." American Poet William Stafford

I am blocked from doing any interesting writing for over 2 month or so. And this post is all about the condition of being blocked in writing.

As paradoxical as it sounds, I have not been able to write anything to my satisfaction so that I can publish. In the world of writing, they say it is a condition called "writer's block". It's a terrible feeling for me as block keeps haunting on every attempt to complete a half finished work or a new one. Here I am sitting with over a dozen of unfinished posts, like a kid confused about which toy to pick and play. It is funny that not long ago, I was chatting with Parimala Shankaraiah, a (or the?) curious tester about this condition called "writer's block". I suggested to her that when blocked, try writing about it. That is what I am exactly doing now. To illustrate the influence of WB on me, I am planning to keep this post small and focused on the topic and close it as soon as possible.

For non starters, WB is a temporary mental condition of extreme self censorship leading to rejection of semi finished parts of writing as this reference suggests. Keyword here is self imposed censorship. Those getting stuck in WB, can take conform in William Stafford's statement consoling themselves with pat on their backs for their high standards of writing.

Why I am blocked on writing?

While I am not short of ideas to write, when I pick up something to write after writing few paragraphs, I start getting a strange feeling that I am repeating or the plot of writing is hypnotically drawn into a predetermined destiny. That is where I stop writing. Not sure what is happening.

WB, like inattentional blindness appears to occur when you are ultra/super focused on a topic so that you literally stop thinking. I am not sure, my state of WB has anything to do my focus (or lack of it) on writing. As defocusing tactic, I switched to twitter and tried my hand there sufficiently enough to get an attention from none other than Jon Bach. That still leaves me high and dry and I am back to WB. Another thing that I suggested to self – stop writing but speak (do pod casts) or draw/paint (cartoons etc). I need to try these channels to see if they help. I think what happens in WB is one (of several) channels of expression of thought gets blocked while keeping others intact.

One thing is sure; I am under pressure of not being able to write even though I have many "good" ideas to write. Some say WB leads to lack of motivation or happens due to lack of motivation. I am pretty sure that is not the case with me. Anxiety, fear of being ignored or failure certainly is back of my mind.

Aiming for High standards? High degree of censorship? Yes, that appears to be the case. I reject lots of writing (pile of trashed pieces of writing) as they don't qualify my own criteria to be good enough to be posted.

I don't agree to generic prescriptions like Lack of preparation, reading, and picking up boring topic leads to WB. My experience of WB is that I am blocked on those topics I deeply interested in and dying to writing something significant, lack of preparation/reading might be an issue in some cases but the in case of the ideas that are pretty original, I often avoid reading to get my flow of my "unbiased" ideas.

Well, now I am suddenly realized that I am supposed to suffering from WB…let me abruptly end this post and start mulling over the cures for WB.

Oh!!! What a relief. This post comes to an end. Have I overcome writers block? Over to you…dear reader!!!

Note: I am surprised to note that there are other types of writer's blocks such as this and this. Here the word block is intended as "collection" or "store" of useful writer tools. Same name different connotation.